“Visual Culture and Machine Vision": With Lila Lee-Morrison

Abstract

Welcome to the second episode of the NICAst podcast series! This episode features a conversation with writer, scholar and historian Lila Lee-Morrison, postdoc fellow at Lund University (Sweden), whose research focusses on machine vision and remote sensing technologies, and the intersections of art, technology, and the environment. In the conversation we talk about her book Portraits of Automated Facial Recognition (Columbia UP, 2019), her publication on Machinic Landscapes and the nexus of art, technology and the environment. Since conducting the interview Lila was awarded a postdoctoral research position at Lund University, and the Andy Warhol writing grant (both 2023).

The conversation explores a variety of topics:Understanding facial recognition technologies as a case study of machine vision: how looking and seeing can become open-ended and plural processes, instead of fixed operations.The affordances and challenges of doing interdisciplinary research on (visual) technologyUsing case studies as sources of theoretical reflection.Technology and the humanities: how does one avoid “becoming a footnote to technology”?The urgency of doing cultural analysis today and the future of the humanities: conceptualizing technology from the perspective of the non-human.